Poetry of Issue #8        Page 55

WRITTEN BENEATH THE PEACE BRIDGE

            Broad gravel and scrap-metal
  barges shove
The drift. Each wake twacks
  the rip-rap bank.
            A rearing tugboat streaks
  past mergansers
Dabbling water-chestnut,
  pinkish-beaked. Above,
            Pigeons on steeleyed decks
  neck-wrestled,
Piqued, oblivious to their
  squabs that whined
            And squealed in steel-ringed
  nests, nursed
Up in the high struts.Opaque
  brown particles
            Swarm churning through
  the river’s slowing tide.
That navy hoop of cormorant
  can compose
            A counter to this bulwark--an
  adolescent osprey
Splayed wide, Greater
  scaups--on the bridge’s
            Side; it glows while through
  the pale green
Flaked arches slide the
boats “Hassayampa,”
            “William H. Latham,”
and “Niagara
  Queen II”.

  G. E. Schwartz